A 
Seeking African Gold and Game 
V.—A Sad Meeting With an Old Friend—A Visit With 
a Boer Party—Arrival at Beira—Conclusion 
By JOHN A. M. LETHBRIDGE 
I HAD been out only four days, when a boy 
came into my camp and said that there was 
an Englishman camped about five miles away 
who was very ill. I went over and found a fel¬ 
low whom I had known in better days, and who, 
strangely enough, had ranched with me in Mon¬ 
tana. He was pretty far gone when I got to his 
camp, but I did not think things were as bad as 
they proved to be. I sent over for my wagon 
and boys to make their camp here, and did the 
best I could, but that was very little. When I 
found him, he had acute dysentery, and although 
I did all in my power to help him, it was of no 
use, and he died the second night after. It was 
rather awful. We had known one another when 
we were young and sanguine, having met on a 
cattle ranch in Montana some twenty years be¬ 
fore, and his family was a good one. I thought 
of the song he always used to sing at the ranch, 
when at night we gathered round the stove. It’s 
a very, very old song and depicts the fate of the 
unfortunate younger son, or as I—being one of 
them—always termed them, '‘The Misunderstood.” 
Many a time had he sung that song to us on that 
Montana ranch, and here he had died miles away 
from any white man, except myself, who had 
only arrived by mere chance. His outfit was 
practically nothing, a repeating rifle, magazine 
pistol, two rather nice elephant tusks weighing 
about sixty pounds each, and a very dilapidated 
tent and camp outfit. He only had seven boys, 
whom, as far as I could find out, he had not paid 
since starting out from Chinde. He would tell 
me nothing. I think his pride held him back, 
until at the last, when I think he wanted to say 
something, but it was entirely unintelligible. If I 
had not arrived on the scene, his end would have 
been like many another good fellow’s—his body 
left for the hyenas, while his few belongings 
would have been divided among the boys, the 
strongest taking the greatest part. However, I 
had come in time to do my best, which was very 
little; but’ I made the boys dig a grave under¬ 
neath a large tree, and we buried him in his 
blankets and made the grave secure against wild 
animals, packing it high up with big boulders and 
stones, and Eli, who was a most useful boy, 
hewed out a rough cross, and cut out on the 
tree trunk his name, underneath another rough 
cross hewn out of the bark. There he lies with 
nothing around except the wild country which I 
know he loved, and where 1 know he preferred 
to pass away. 
I notified his people in England as soon as 
I could, but from them—and his father was a 
parson of the Church of England—I never re¬ 
ceived even a word of thanks, which, of course, 
goes without saying I did not expect or want. 
His boys I paid off, and realized on my arrival 
at Beira what I could on the two tusks of ivory. 
I now pulled out again, but very much de¬ 
pressed, and two days later I went down, and if 
it had not been for Eli, I think my body would 
now be resting not many miles from my old 
friend. Eli was like a mother to me, never 
leaving me for a minute. He told me afterward 
that at one time he came near sending runners 
back to Fort Jameson, but luckily I pulled round 
a bit at that time. I never realized how good a 
boy Eli was until this time, and nursing me was 
very far from a pleasure, for I was very, very 
ill. Thanks to Eli I pulled through. I am no 
lover of a black man, but Eli’s soul is white, and 
in spite of my being sometimes a bit hard on 
him, I think he realized that in my rough and 
ready way I tried to be just, and that is one thing 
I always tried to do with the natives. 
After a few days’ easy marching, for I was 
still extremely weak, I reached the Pungwe. We 
had now been some days in Portuguese East 
Africa, in the bushveldt. It was here that the 
Boers used to bring down their cattle to winter, 
' at which times it is bearable, but in summer it is 
full of every sort of fever, and is the breeding 
place of countless mosquitoes and flies, but game 
of all kinds is abundant. There are a good many 
elephant and buffalo, and a fair quantity of koo¬ 
doo, of which species I killed two very fine bulls. 
The hunting is decidedly hard, on account of 
the thick bush and swamps, and it will be many 
years before it is shot out. To keep out of the 
way of tsetse fly was now my problem, and sev¬ 
eral times it necessitated our marching at night. 
There were many small streams, and we did not 
suffer for water; rather we had too much of it. 
My first koodoo bull I found with three cows, 
but he was off before I could get a shot. Before 
he disappeared in the bush, I had sufficient time 
to see that he was a beauty, and as the ground 
was good for tracking, I could see by his spoor 
that he was no ordinary bull. I could not follow 
him on my horse, and in my weak state it was 
necessary to travel slowly. After going a short 
distance, I felt I must give it up. The damp 
heat was too much for me. I lay down under 
the shady side of a bush, and for some time 
took things easy and gradually dropped off to 
sleep. No doubt this was the best thing I could 
have done. When I awoke a few hours later, I 
felt quite fit to travel and again took up the 
spoor, and had not gone far, when I caught sight 
of him, feeding in the open and presenting to me 
an easy shot, which I took advantage of, killing 
him stone dead with my first barrel. The cows 
stood by perfectly bewildered and did not offer 
to run until I got up quite close to them. They 
gave me ample time to admire their graceful 
markings. The other koodoo I found drinking at 
a slough above, but I made a bad shot, and on 
he went. I followed up for a bit. and although 
I had broken a foreleg, he could travel better 
than I could, so I handed my rifle to Eli and told 
him -to go on and not return until he got him, 
nor did he. When he came back in the evening, 
the porter was carrying in the head and head- 
skin. This head was an inch longer than the 
other one, and I was indeed proud. It was the 
largest of this species that I ever had the good 
luck to secure. 
There were a good many lions about, but 
they were very difficult to see or find, on account 
of the thickness of the grass and bush, and I 
told Eli we would set a gun on the following 
night at the carcass, but we counted without our 
host, for when next morning he showed me what 
had been the carcass yesterday, there was noth¬ 
ing left worth speaking of, but this I put down 
to wild dogs. 
Our camp another night was close by — rather 
too close to — an enormous swamp, which was 
simply cut up by buffalo, but an exceedingly bad 
place to shoot in, as in many parts the water was 
up to one’s knees, and in these places, I own, I 
am always afraid of suddenly stepping on a 
crocodile, or pitching headlong into a pool of 
greater depth, in all probability containing one. 
I will leave some one else to try conclusions with 
one of these animals in his own element. The 
first day we did not sight buffalo, though we 
jumped some twice. I was very much handi¬ 
capped. as I could not go far or fast. On the 
second day I saw one. which I took to be a bull, 
and got in a snapshot, which was a kill; but 
when we got up to the carcass it turned out to 
be a very young bull, whose head was not worth 
carrying out. I was certain that my shot would 
scare the remainder of the herd, and should have 
moved on the next day, if. on our return to 
camp, I had not found my horse sick and his 
head beginning to swell and running at the mouth 
and nose. I recognized in an instant what it 
was — the dreaded dikkop, or horse sickness. I 
